What Did Kerry Know, And When Did He Know It?
Boy, how a fresh Clinton scandal can feel like Old Home Week.
First there was the Democrat suggestion that the Bergeler investigation was leaked by the Bush Administration to distract from the “devastating” 9/11 commission final report. The suggestion of which was itself an attempt at distraction, since (1) the report wasn’t damaging at all to the White House and (2) they knew its contents long in advance since it had to be pre-vetted for national security purposes.
And, not to be outdone, there was the counter-theory, marvelingly and admiringly put forth by some conservative pundits, that the old Clinton spinner Lanny Davis leaked the story pre-emptively to his favorite reporter, the AP’s John Solomon, so as to deprive the Republicans of the chance to do so later in the campaign when it could have seriously damaged John Kerry. The underlying implication being, “Damn, they outmaneuvered us again!”
Well, I’ll buy the Dem leak, but not the toadying defeatism. First, if this theory is sound, then by its very nature the other side had the initiative, and there was nothing we could have done to prevent it. The Clinton propaganda machine, being the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be, never lets moss grow beneath its feet. Second, Republicans almost never play the leak game, unless it’s against other Republicans. And third, I don’t think this leak was directed primarily at the President or the GOP. Rather, I think it was an attention-seizing salvo in the war for control of the Democrat party between the Clinton machine and the Kennedy family old guard being fronted by the Kerry-Edwards ticket.
It’s no secret that the Clintons, through their DNC sock-puppet Terry McAuliffe, control the Democrat party, and that the Kennedys want to regain it via the Kerry candidacy. It’s also no secret that the Clintons didn’t want Kerry at first (running Wesley Clark instead) and then allowed Kerry to get the nomination when Clark fizzled by aiding in the self-destruction of Howard Dean. Their underlying assumption: Kerry wouldn’t get blown out, but wouldn’t be a serious threat to actually win and derail Hillary’s designs on 2008. And despite President Bush’s increasingly feckless floundering, that is still a fairly safe assumption.
But the Clintons didn’t get where they’ve been and are now by leaving anything to chance. Which is why a lot of old Clinton hands populate and animate the Kerry campaign, and where Sandy Berger comes in.
It cannot be seriously questioned that Berger’s primary mission in stealing classified documents related to the Millennium terrorist incidents was to sanitize the record so as to minimize the damage to Clinton’s ongoing legacy-quest that would be caused by the public airing of his wholesale national security derelictions and how they left us wide open to the 9/11 attacks. But consider this Watergate-reminiscent question: what did John Kerry know, and when did he know it?
Berger was a top Kerry foreign policy advisor at the same time that he was doing his “plumbing” for Bill Clinton. It isn’t at all unreasonable to ask whether Berger might have shared this pilfered classified information with the “presumptive” Democrat nominee. There’s no way to prove that, of course – at least none that WE know of. But Kerry did ditch Berger awfully fast. And then there’s the matter of what is being called “Kerry’s suddenly disappearing web documents” specifically relating to anti-terror policy.
Now is this to suggest that Kerry was a co-conspirator in Bergelergate? Not at all. Or at least not necessarily; as I have said elsewhere, I don’t think the Boston Balker is a crook or a traitor (he was a traitor at one time, and that’ll come into play to the degree that he tries to suck off his four-month Vietnam photo-op, but he would be incapable of helping pull off a caper like this). What I am suggesting is that the Kerryites were all too happy to help themselves to Berger’s “resources” not knowing from where he had obtained them, and since the Clintonoids knew Berger was already under criminal investigation, they let this fact slip right before the Democratic National Convention to both embarrass Kerry and send him a message.
And I think that message is that there’s a lot more little “surprises” where this one came from.
First there was the Democrat suggestion that the Bergeler investigation was leaked by the Bush Administration to distract from the “devastating” 9/11 commission final report. The suggestion of which was itself an attempt at distraction, since (1) the report wasn’t damaging at all to the White House and (2) they knew its contents long in advance since it had to be pre-vetted for national security purposes.
And, not to be outdone, there was the counter-theory, marvelingly and admiringly put forth by some conservative pundits, that the old Clinton spinner Lanny Davis leaked the story pre-emptively to his favorite reporter, the AP’s John Solomon, so as to deprive the Republicans of the chance to do so later in the campaign when it could have seriously damaged John Kerry. The underlying implication being, “Damn, they outmaneuvered us again!”
Well, I’ll buy the Dem leak, but not the toadying defeatism. First, if this theory is sound, then by its very nature the other side had the initiative, and there was nothing we could have done to prevent it. The Clinton propaganda machine, being the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be, never lets moss grow beneath its feet. Second, Republicans almost never play the leak game, unless it’s against other Republicans. And third, I don’t think this leak was directed primarily at the President or the GOP. Rather, I think it was an attention-seizing salvo in the war for control of the Democrat party between the Clinton machine and the Kennedy family old guard being fronted by the Kerry-Edwards ticket.
It’s no secret that the Clintons, through their DNC sock-puppet Terry McAuliffe, control the Democrat party, and that the Kennedys want to regain it via the Kerry candidacy. It’s also no secret that the Clintons didn’t want Kerry at first (running Wesley Clark instead) and then allowed Kerry to get the nomination when Clark fizzled by aiding in the self-destruction of Howard Dean. Their underlying assumption: Kerry wouldn’t get blown out, but wouldn’t be a serious threat to actually win and derail Hillary’s designs on 2008. And despite President Bush’s increasingly feckless floundering, that is still a fairly safe assumption.
But the Clintons didn’t get where they’ve been and are now by leaving anything to chance. Which is why a lot of old Clinton hands populate and animate the Kerry campaign, and where Sandy Berger comes in.
It cannot be seriously questioned that Berger’s primary mission in stealing classified documents related to the Millennium terrorist incidents was to sanitize the record so as to minimize the damage to Clinton’s ongoing legacy-quest that would be caused by the public airing of his wholesale national security derelictions and how they left us wide open to the 9/11 attacks. But consider this Watergate-reminiscent question: what did John Kerry know, and when did he know it?
Berger was a top Kerry foreign policy advisor at the same time that he was doing his “plumbing” for Bill Clinton. It isn’t at all unreasonable to ask whether Berger might have shared this pilfered classified information with the “presumptive” Democrat nominee. There’s no way to prove that, of course – at least none that WE know of. But Kerry did ditch Berger awfully fast. And then there’s the matter of what is being called “Kerry’s suddenly disappearing web documents” specifically relating to anti-terror policy.
Now is this to suggest that Kerry was a co-conspirator in Bergelergate? Not at all. Or at least not necessarily; as I have said elsewhere, I don’t think the Boston Balker is a crook or a traitor (he was a traitor at one time, and that’ll come into play to the degree that he tries to suck off his four-month Vietnam photo-op, but he would be incapable of helping pull off a caper like this). What I am suggesting is that the Kerryites were all too happy to help themselves to Berger’s “resources” not knowing from where he had obtained them, and since the Clintonoids knew Berger was already under criminal investigation, they let this fact slip right before the Democratic National Convention to both embarrass Kerry and send him a message.
And I think that message is that there’s a lot more little “surprises” where this one came from.
posted by JASmius at 8:14 PM
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